<p>Making it an issue for parents, and/or making comparisons with siblings, strike me as unhelpful approaches.</p>
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<p>Yes. One of our sons did not drive until he was 21. His younger sister was driving well before he did. Truth to tell, he only learned to drive at age 21 mainly because he needed it for a job. He passed the test on his third attempt. </p>
<p>I don’t think that this is something parents should allow themselves to get frustrated about. As zoosermom said, listen to your DD. Is this something that she really wants right now? If so, my suggestion would be to nonjudgmentally help her work toward this goal. </p>
<p>But also, help her to have a realistic perspective. Maybe she is not ready, even if she wants it. It would be a genuine service to her to say matter-of-factly, without anger or frustration, “Yes we will practice regularly (and perhaps use professional instruction) but right now you are not ready for another crack at the test.” </p>
<p>If it truly isn’t something that she wants right now, then my suggestion is to listen to her and let her figure things out in time, when she is ready.</p>
<p>Driving is an essential skill unless you can, for sure, live your entire life in an area with excellent public transportation…or be a pain in the tush for others who need to drive you everywhere. It’s hard to ensure that you’ll always live where there’s public transporation so it’s best to learn if you can. </p>
<p>Zoosermom…does a very good GPS help you. There are ones that tell you which lane to be in.</p>
Nope. I can’t use GPS at all. It’s the contemporaneousness of driving that I can’t do. I have to put the mental picture in my mind first because unless it is there, driving is like moving toward a brick wall for me. When most people drive, their mind is moving with them, but mine doesn’t unless I’ve already practiced the route with my eyes.</p>
<p>I think it’s important to find out what’s going on with the OP’s daughter. Like HugCheck said, it could be a vision thing, but it could also be a specific missing skill like practice using the rear view mirror or whatever. Addressing whatever it is specifically is a much better option than just practicing and hoping to hit the target at some point.</p>
<p>We made both Ds get their licenses in high school (as we also made them learn to swim, allowing no other sports lessons/signups until they accomplished it at least to a minimal degree), but they didn’t get permits late spring of junior year, and took the test in late fall of senior year. We did a LOT of driving with them over the exact same route (to and from school, no school bus service to our house) until they were very comfortable with a that route in all weather and traffic patterns. Then branched out more. First driving with D2 was in a parking lot (a few sessions there, then VERY slowly in roads around it). Early on Sunday mornings when there was no traffic. She was terrible. Only more time behind the wheel helped. D2 (very similar to your D academically, right down to the U of Chicago EA admit) failed her written test TWICE before passing it, too.</p>
<p>Does it make sense for your D to take another round of behind the wheel instruction? I assume she has had one course, most states require it.</p>
<p>D1, age 23, now lives in a city with great public transportation. I offered her my used car as a grad present (Subaru with a lot of good miles left on it), but she turned it down. Her boyfriend has a car for when it is really needed, and she feels no need to own one in the city. I assume once she has kids someday she will get one… but I bet it won’t be soon.</p>
<p>D2 is in college, but torn – she doesn’t really like big cities, but does NOT like to drive. Not sure what will happen when she graduates.</p>
<p>Growing up in Brooklyn I never needed a driver’s licence and although I got permits a few times never got a licence. When I got married and moved to the suburbs I still depended upon my husband to drive me places (my commute was walking to a train). Finally got my licence - 8 months pregnant (had my road test in a terrible snowstorm) - knowing I had to be able to drive my baby around! I think I needed to be ready and have the pressure of knowing I had to do it.</p>
<p>BTW I don’t know how to swim (I am deathly afraid of water).</p>
<p>My daughter can swim beautifully and drives very well (got her licence before senior year of HS - she goes to school in a city and only drives when home on break and then not that much).</p>
<p>I am a good driver, but it took me a lot longer than most to learn, and I don’t think I will ever be as at ease with it as most people seem to get. Has anyone besides you and your spouse tried teaching her? I had the hardest time getting used to parking, and my grandmother and an older friend took me out to an empty church parking lot one evening and for some reason just having somebody else teach me was what clicked. That same friend was the one who taught me to ride a bike months after my father had given up. I just needed a different person to try. I also switched from driving my mom’s fusion to my dad’s focus, which was slightly smaller and gave me more margin of error for parking and made me more comfortable overall. I still prefer to drive small cars, for me they are easier to drive. I learned the expressway just well enough to pass the road test but then my parents forbid me to drive on it, but a coworker re-taught me when I started my first grown-up job and now I can do it. I think I could have done it before but I was scared.</p>
<p>Part of the problem, I think, is that the longer this goes on the lower and lower her confidence is going to get and the worse she is going to drive. She needs to practice the living daylights out of herself until it becomes second nature, that is the only way to learn. She is nervous and over-thinking, or nervous and distracted, she needs to be able to know which way to turn the wheel to back up without thinking. When I think, I get confused and do it wrong, but now that it is second nature I just do it correctly without realizing it.</p>
<p>Whether it is critical for her to learn, I guess, depends on where she wants to live as an adult and whether she wants to be limited by access to public transport. I live in an area with no public transport, so I have to drive. My fiance drives for me whenever remotely possible, because I just don’t like it, but I can do it. I drive myself to work every day and can get to all the usual places we go without difficulty. Someday I need to be able to drive our kids in an emergency if he is at work or unavailable. I need to be able to take myself to the hospital in an emergency, I don’t want to have to call an ambulance just because I need a few stitches if no one is around to drive me (if I am well enough to drive myself, obviously.) If I go out with fiance and he gets sick or injured, I have to be able to get him home myself. What if he is in an accident and is taken to the hospital and no one is around to drive me to him? I need the skill of driving to be able to take care of myself and others properly.</p>
<p>And let me tell you, it sucks to have to depend on other people to get you around. I feel like a 24 year old child sometimes and I CAN drive, it just makes me anxious when I have to go someplace unfamiliar! We are likely going to buy a used car 2 and a half hours from home and we are going to have to get a relative to help us drive out there because I can’t drive one of the cars home by myself, that drive is too much for me to do alone. It’s humiliating. And when we go to Florida next summer, a 24 hour drive, my fiance will have to do the whole drive himself and we will have to spend extra on hotels to stop more often because we can’t switch drivers. It’s no fun not being able to drive. And it’s difficult to explain to friends why they always have to come to you and why you can’t ever take a turn driving. Unless you live in an area where it is common for people to not know how to drive, no adult will understand why your D can’t drive or be sympathetic.</p>
<p>In our rural state where viable public transportation is scarce, driving is an essential skill. In fact, a local charity (Mountaineer Good News Garage) provides cars at next to nothing for low income people who need them in order to get and keep a job. That said, it’s never too late to learn. I took driver’s ed a bezillion years ago at night since the classes at my high school were filled with older kids. I was the only 16 y.o. in the class, and I remember one lady who was 50 (ancient to me, then) who had never learned to drive and was tired of depending on others to get around. I ran into her about a year and a half after the class ended. She said she’d only driven about a dozen times since she had her license, but she knew she could if she had to now and that made all the difference.
ETA: We leaned on S1 to get his license. He went to HS out of district, we had to provide the transportation and since I had a company car at the time a vehicle was available. Circumstances for S2 have been completely different. He goes to our district HS with bus transportation and we were down to one car for 14 months, so he’s 18 and just starting drivers ed. Different kids, different situations.</p>
<p>Let’s make something clear: a bad driver is not like a bad clarinetist, who is just annoying. Bad drivers kill and injure other, innocent people. If she doesn’t want to drive, she should NOT be behind the wheel. And if she is a terrible driver, she should REALLY not be behind the wheel. Driving is not an essential life skill, and plenty of people don’t drive.</p>
<p>Happykid took the state mandated course through a local driving school that included 6 hours of supervised driving with one of the instructors. Then we spent the next year or so accumulating the state mandated 60 hours of supervised driving (ten during “night-time” hours). By the time her permit was expiring, she still didn’t feel confident and didn’t know how to parallel park, so she re-took the written exam and spent several more months doing practice driving - often just the 10 minute trip to school in the morning or a 20 minute trip to pick her dad up after work. When the only thing missing was decent parallel parking skills, she had an additional two hour lesson with the driving instructor to work on parallel parking and to review the in-car exam in detail. She passed the driving test on the first try - the only one of her gang of friends to be able to do so.</p>
<p>Total supervised driving time before that test was very nearly twice what was required by the state of MD. I know that made a difference. But the biggest difference was that extra lesson with a calm professional driving instructor. Not only did she gain successful parallel parking skills, but she walked into the in-car exam knowing exactly what would be asked of her. </p>
<p>Provided there are no unidentified neurological issues (field of vision, spatial sense, etc.), shelling out for a calm driving instructor might make all the difference for the OP’s child.</p>
<p>If she doesn’t want to drive, she should NOT be behind the wheel. And if she is a terrible driver, she should REALLY not be behind the wheel</p>
<p>Agreed…but do we know that she doesn’t want to drive? Or is she anxious because she knows it’s a weak area for her. She’s a smart girl. Smart folks can be rather famous for running away from areas where their “smartness” isn’t being demonstrated. I’m certain that’s what went on with S1. He excels at so many things, but when driving turned up to be his Achilles Heel, he didn’t like having that exposed, so he wasn’t always willing to practice/try as much as he should have…which delayed the whole process considerably. Once he knew he HAD to start driving, he was willing to practice on a more regular basis and truly listen to the corrections being given. For awhile, I think he was tuning out corrections.</p>
<p>Wow. I wrote my post just before signing off and going to bed and when I just logged on, I see 48 responses. I read them all. Thanks everyone for the ideas and support. I never really thought about the limitations on job search and living choices that not being able to drive would cause. Those who made those comments are correct. Since D came to me and asked to try again for her license, it is obviously important to her. The CA DMV does issue photo ID’s that are not driver’s licenses, so she can go that route for ID purposes. We will keep up the practice over the next few weeks, though I don’t know if she’ll be ready for a road test before her permit expires in late Feb. I really liked the golf cart idea too. I wish I had access to one. I think I am going to look into another series of professional instruction as well. Thanks everyone and glad to hear I am not alone.</p>
<p>p.s. She doesn’t have any vision or spatial, depth perception issues. She did play sports at a younger age (soccer) but was not that good, so she switched to officiating. She can see fine. She just gets nervous and freezes up. I practically have to pry her fingers off the steering wheel after a session.</p>
<p>^I agree with mom2collegekids. I think Cardinal Fang has a point too that some people just shouldn’t drive, but I wouldn’t be ready to throw in the towel on this kid yet. I took drivers ed when I was 14 and didn’t get my license until I was almost 18 (in a state where 16 is the norm), and it took me to 22 to be really comfortable, but I can COMFORTABLY do 99% of the driving I will ever have to do in my life now with real skill. In that 99%, I am a better driver than most. I am the one other people ask to drive in bad weather. The 1% I am not comfortable with, I do just choose not to do for the safety of myself and others and my sanity, even though I could probably still do it and be totally fine. I am satisfied with the 99%. Scared drivers are bad drivers, but fear is curable with practice. If the problem is nerves and fear, she can do this.</p>
<p>Are there any go-cart tracks near your home? IF so, that would give her more practice with turns and timing of turns. My older son had problems with this…and he’d do this weird thing of stopping about 10 feet behind where you should stop at lights and stop signs.</p>
<p>If you can get her back on a bike these next few weeks, that could also help. Again, I do think bike riding is an excellent pre driving skill.</p>
<p>She just gets nervous and freezes up.</p>
<p>Yes…so doing the go carts or golf carts could help with that…as well as taking her to empty areas…industrial areas on weekends.</p>
<p>I live in NYC. I grew up in a suburb and learned early and we live in a neighborhood where it’s not impossible to park and we’ve almost always had a car, and my daughter started wanting to drive when she was 2 (Mommy? Today I drive car!).</p>
<p>But among my daughter’s friends, many are not chomping at the bit. Except in rare situations, kids need to be 18 to get a license they can use to drive alone in the city. And of course NYC is the capital of mass transportation. I am grateful that my daughter learned to navigate traveling alone with her Metrocard rather than behind the wheel, but of course she wants to take her road test on her 18th birthday and she checks the DMV website every day to see if the date is available to register. But she has plenty of friends who are in no hurry.</p>
<p>My older son doesn’t have a driver’s license at 25. He can take a shuttlebus to work, he lives across the street from a shopping center. He’s in a suburb with mediocre transportation, but he can get to the airport with it. He had a learner’s permit once upon a time, but never took the test. It’s his problem now as he’s on the other coast.</p>
<p>I didn’t get my license until the summer after I graduated from college. I’d just gotten a grant from NEH to drive across the country photographing fire stations. I ended up being a much better driver than my partner who got her license at 16. She was a bit like Zoosermom, she just was unable to anticipate anything and she’d do thing like turn left into the wrong side of a median. She was truly terrifying. </p>
<p>Younger son has his learner’s permit, but we never seem to squeeze much practice into vacations. He’s a careful driver, but I think he’ll be okay if we can ever concentrate on the practicing. I had considered getting him driving lessons for Christmas, but it turns out he’s not going to be around for as long as I thought, so perhaps it’s just as well we didn’t.</p>
<p>I took my son to the local community college campus when he was first learning to drive. At weekends and during vacations the parking lots and roads around the campus are clear and you can get practice with stop signs, giving way, parking etc. It’s a lot less intimidating to get used to handling the car when traffic is minimal. You can move onto regular roads once he/she has gained confidence.</p>
<p>Detroit, Michigan. Extremely poor public transportation and yes, driving is an essential skill if you want to get/keep a job or even get to school (our district does not provide transportation at all). Lucky for me my D took to it like a duck to water and was ready to get her license right at 16 (the driving instructor complimented ME after the road test which she passed on the first try). It was rough though, I’m a nervous RIDER which drove her crazy. She now has her own car and drives herself and a neighbor kid to school. She’s still on a graduated license so there are restrictions in the evening and on the number of kids in the car. She also swam early and took her bike out one day and said she wasn’t coming back inside until she could ride it two wheeler.</p>
<p>I agree another round with a driving instructor who is not a parent might help. Good luck.</p>
<p>I’m putting in a word for the victims of bad, unsafe drivers here. It is OK not to drive if you are a bad driver. Everyone doesn’t have to drive. Instead of putting bad drivers on the road to mow down innocent pedestrians, bicyclists and other drivers, figure out ways for people not to drive.</p>
<p>No, your inattentive teenager doesn’t have to get behind the wheel to menace me when I’m innocently riding my bike. No, your half-blind mother doesn’t have to drive and T-bone safe drivers. No. No. No. Just stop it. Your child doesn’t have the right to be a bad driver and still drive, and when you know your child (or your parent) is a bad driver who barely passed the test and shouldn’t have, but you nevertheless put them behind the wheel and they kill someone, that death will be your fault.</p>
<p>As for me, I hate driving but being from the Motor City you have to drive, and you have to drive well. I’d totally love living in Chicago or New York where I didn’t need a car.</p>